Yesterday, my wife and I went on a walk with one of our daughters on the Cayce segment of the Riverwalk. As we were heading back toward our car, we heard the Giant Zipper sound of a very large tree starting to fall, accelerating as it tore down through surrounding vegetation, then landing with a muffled Crump!
Curious to see the source, we started back up the trail roughly in the direction of the sound (the foliage was too dense for the direct approach), but we met a man coming from that direction, and he reckoned that the tree was about 100 yards from the path, well out of sight. So we gave up and left.
When led us to an epiphany, one which I must remember to mention to my friend Hal French over at USC:
If a tree makes a sound in the forest but no one sees it, did it really fall?
When you know the answer to that, Grasshopper, it will be time for you to leave the blog…
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I wanna know what the man you met was doing back there. I’m wondering whether or not it knocked his tent down, or if he had the meth lab lit up. Did it not seem suspiscious to you that he happened to be there when it “fell?”
Trees make good fuel for campfires you know.
I’m surprised he didn’t tap you for a handout.
Better not say too much, Mayor Bob may submit an op-ed about Columbias’ homelessness problem. David
I thought the sense was hearing, not seeing.
The “giant zipper” sound? I thought it was another Clinton post.
Well, if someone goes to that much trouble to set themselves up, like a whisker for a razor…
So, you couldn’t see the tree for the forest?
Exactly — which in its way is as bad as not seeing the forest. Or it can be.
In fact, that’s something I get accused of — being a forest guy, and not taking enough interest in the individual trees. It’s the source of some of the arguments we have here… I go, “Look, a forest!” And somebody says, but what about THAT tree? And I have to admit I didn’t even notice the tree in question, and off we go again…
Here’s a nice forest to look at. In the last few days the 30,000th American soldier was wounded in Iraq. In addition, the 500th soldier was killed in Afghanistan. This has become a forest of soldiers killed and wounded in a never ending campaign of occupation. The coming election may be decided on economic issues, as well it should, but the whole nightmare of foreign adventurism should not be ignored.
So let’s look first at the trees, the individual foot soldier who may be killed or wounded. That’s the obvious cost of war. But let’s not forget the soldier who is not physically wounded but may be mentally scared by the experience of war. These trees add up to a forest of problems for our country. A forest of obligations for these fine men and women whom the president and his GOP collegues would rather ignore. Yet the cost is real. The cost is high.
And the benefits? Apparently they are nonexistent since no one can ever articulate what they are. Just some vague notion that the middle-east is unstable and we need stability in order to import more oil. This is just a forest of lies.
Mr. bud, methinks you might believe a one-trick pony is to a dead horse as Afghanistan is to Iraq.
Have you ever thought that W might be spending all that money and causing all those casualties because he reads this blog and just wants to upset you?
It could be he’s posting under an assumed name like penultimo, cackling with glee at your effort to divert every thread toward a discussion of Iraq.
Let me try your game:
Were Saddam Hussein hanged in the forest, without a news medium there to report his demise, would he be dead?
Doesn’t make sense, does it?
Welcome to your world.
No one takes seriously the phony concern of liberals and socialists for our soldiers, when they dismiss the thousands of civilians murdered by Al Qaeda, Al Sadr, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the other terrorist allies of Barak Obama.
Bud can’t hear you. He’s tinkering around the back lot at the Cayce segment of the Riverwalk trying to get some more campfire fuel to “fall.”
If you ride by there you may see him…just look for the wild-eyed guy in the tinfoil hat. David